Thursday, February 18, 2010

I've be implementing a new upgrade procedure for the application soon, so hopefully this will be last time you will be required to uninstall the application and install this one. Thus i've dubbed this release v1.3.1 (Alpha). It will still be set into demostration mode, and the unlock key entered to remove the 6 level limit on characters.

I have implemented a new feature to the application that allows different effects to be applied to a character. Effects are any bonuses or penalties that apply to different characterstics of the character at various times.

A main example of this are conditions that a character can gain, which apply penalties to different characterstics of the character, hence why this now has its own section.

This replaces the conditions edit box in the Resistances section and now lists all the gainable conditions a character can get.

When one is to be applied, the relevant checkbox is checked. The details of the condition are then shown in the summary section, and the relevant effect added to the effects section.

This then leads to the next section - Effects.

Each effect that applies to a different characterstic needs to be entered invidually. Thus if a character is under the Elemental Body spell or wild shape ability, each characterstic must be entered in.

The characterstics that the effect can be applied to start with the abilities and include size; saves listed indivually and all; combat modifers that include initiative, damage, attack bonus, melee attack bonus, ranged attack bonus, CMB, CMD, armor class and natural armor; speed items; resistances items; skills listed indiviually or all skills; and some class ability items.

If the effect gives a bonus type, this can be selected from the known bonus types.And then the bonus itself. Some characterstics require the bonus to be entered in a particular format. DR for example needs to be in the format number/reduction and vision in the format of type - range.

Each characterstic in the application an effect can affect is checked and the bonus added as seen below.

So because of the large list of characterstics that a spell, item or class ability may effect, I have allowed a large number of items to be entered. The click menu system is also present to allow effect items to be moved, deleted, duplicated.

This combined with only effects that have been checked to apply actually apply, lets mutiple sets of effect to be entered and then the effect turned on and off for different situations.

It does require a lot of manual entereing, but once setup I beleive this is a great enchancement to the application.

The application has been changed with a few things but I will start with a new equipment option, namely Rods, Staves & Wands.

This section allows 4 items to be entered and their properties updated.

The first option is to choose if the item is a Rod, Staff or Wand. This only makes minor changes to the control, such as the Quality / Source option which is changed to Divine and Arcane for Wands, and Lesser, Normal and Greater for Rods. Staffs don't have a source.

The other options all require manual entering that includes the Charges, Aura and Caster Level and a larger area for any powers the item may have.

The click menu system has also been added for wands similar to weapons to allow the moving of the item into the different areas of the application. When moving to an equipment section the caster level and charges is brought across.

Hi All, back with another update to the application which is an extension of the application, no new content as yet, but still a bit of development.

As previously said I have been working on expanding the click menu system for weapons and items to allow them to be maniuplated around the application. Just to reinterate this is a left click menu system that brings up options to choose.

The "Clear" option is still present, which is now grouped with "Insert", "Duplicate" and "Delete"

"Insert" moves all the slots beneath the current slot down, and inserts a blank slot.

"Duplicate" does a similar process except duplicating the slot.

"Delete" clears the slot and then moves all underneath up.

Speaking of moving, there are two grouped options for moving up and down. This will move the current slot up or down as selected, moving the next/previous slot to that current position. Moving up can't be performed if at the first slot, and moving down at the last and the options are disabled. This is then useful for having the weapons that are wanted to be printed on the character sheet being in the order you wish.

I have also included a moving to the equipment section grouping. This deletes the slot and as said moves the option to the specified equipment section. With this option however, all details setup for slot will be lost, with only the description plus quality and any special properties is displayed in the equipment section.

The application will prompt for permanant changes and cannot be changed unless all changes are reverted.

Armor and shield have the move to equipment options as well without any of the additional items listed above as these are single entries.

The equipment section for carried, stored and valuables all have click menu button included in their grids as seen below.

This has similar options as for weapons except that it only allows moving to the alternate equipment section.

I deliberately have not done a move option to weapon or equivilant option because with items being freetext, the weapon cannot always be guaranteed being present in the list of weapons or etc.

There was also some bug fixes included with some options not working correctly in the weapons for drill downs.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

I'm pleased to annouce that I have completed work on the first page of the printable character sheet. The sheet is based on the pathfinder character sheet with some alterations to suit the program.

Everything is pre-filled from the character program with some items only showing selective details.

Only the best Damage reduction is printed assuming the character has DR and there are more then 2 types present.

Only 5 weapons are shown, with 3 melee / thrown weapons in the top 3 slots, and 2 ranged weapons in the bottom 2. The weapons are taken in order they appear in the program from top down, and thus I'll be working on a way to change their order in the program.

Only 39 skill slots are shown, this includes 3 slots for Craft, and 2 for both Perform and Profession. I have on my list to work on a way to show less of one of these three and more of the others if the character has more such as a bard with perform who is likely to have more then 3 perform skills selected.

The default for the program is preview which can be changed in the preferences screen. The other options are print and tiff. Tiff creates an file of extension 'tif' in an output directory. I added this option for the times where you may want to send your sheet to someone such as your DM.

The sheet can also be printed without needing a character which prints blank options for manual use.

I plan on making the following sheets more dynamicable by allowing different options to be printed, but for the time now page 1 should suffix as I work on some of the other options.